Ubuntu 9.04 review

Why wait for Windows 7? Ubuntu is ready to take over the world right now

Our Verdict

For

Good included software

Easy to use

Free

Against

Limitations for Kubuntu users

It's amazing that the Ubuntu boot media is still a single CD, which you can use as a Live session if you need to.

One cutting-edge enhancement to the installation is the addition of 'ext4' as a filesystem type, which improves read/write speed by about 25 per cent. It's not enabled by default as some users have reported issues with file integrity, but in testing we found no issues.

A standard installation weighs in at 2.2GB, and bundles several software updates. OpenOffice.org 3 and GIMP 2.6 take centre stage. Strangely, Kubuntu users have to do without Firefox and GIMP, and the KDE package manager is less user-friendly.

This being Linux, there's nothing stopping you running any application – but that would be ignoring the obvious care and attention that's gone into the standard installation. For once, you feel like the Ubuntu developers are thinking like normal computer users – and that's why Ubuntu is currently the best Linux distribution on the planet.